Tracking and monitoring devices for detecting an individual's location and movement can be used in a variety of applications. Whether for monitoring the whereabouts of children as a safety check or for tracking the productivity of employees in a business, such systems allow one to easily and more effectively supervise others from a remote location.
Conventional child locator systems provide an example of a limited-range monitoring device that can be used for monitoring children within a few hundred feet of a parent. A child wears a small, portable transmitter that emits a low power RF signal detected by a receiver worn or carried by the parent. Whenever the child strays too far from the parent, the parent's receiver no longer detects the signal and emits an alarm. The parent can then warn the child to remain within a closer range and avoid danger. The conventional child locator system can therefore be useful for detecting whether an individual who wears a monitoring device travels beyond a certain distance.
A common difficulty for parents of adolescent children is to supervise their children's activities while the children are farther away from their parents. Although parents can contact their children by providing them with mobile cellular telephones, a telephone call may create an embarrassing interruption (e.g., at the movies, at a party with friends, etc.). If the child's mobile telephone incorporates caller identification features, the child may also be inclined not to answer the parent's calls. Further, the parent may have little confidence that the child is being honest in describing his location and activities. Therefore, there is a need for a monitoring system that allows a parent to track a child's location within a wide geographical area from a remote location.
In addition to child monitoring, there are also many business applications for monitoring systems that can detect the locations of employees whose job requires travel away from the worksite. Many types of businesses employ drivers who pick up or deliver goods or patrons. For these businesses, dispatchers rely upon their drivers to communicate their location and workload, usually through a CB-type radio or a mobile cellular telephone. The dispatcher must continually speak with the drivers to learn each of their present locations in order to evaluate which driver is the most appropriate for an assignment. In supervising the drivers, the dispatcher is unable to detect whether drivers are taking unauthorized breaks or detours, or are otherwise being unproductive. For such businesses, there is a need for a monitoring system that allows a dispatcher to instantly detect the geographical locations of the drivers within the geographical area.
Accordingly, there is a need for a monitoring system that can detect the geographical location of one or more individuals and provide this information to another at a remote location.